Another Japanese national allegedly linked to a telecom fraud syndicate was deported to Japan on Monday, the Bureau of Immigration (BI) said.

In a statement, the BI said the fugitive who was identified as Sasaki Yohei, 36, was arrested last October 1 along Mercury Street in Bahay Toro, Quezon City.

High-ranking members of the group were arrested by the agency’s Fugitive Search Unit. (FSU).

In a previous interview with The Daily Manila Shimbun, BI-FSU chief Rendel Ryan Sy said that Sasaki was one of the ten members of a Japanese telecom fraud group who fled Cambodia to the Philippines weeks before four of its other members were arrested in July.

The four members, identified as Sawada Masaya, Suzuki Seiji, Koji Ueda, and Jun Kiyohara, were deported in November.

According to the BI, Japanese authorities said Sasaki had an active arrest warrant issued by the Omiya summary court in Saitama where he was charged with supposedly defrauding a senior citizen.

BI Commissioner Joel Anthony Viado said that as a result of his deportation, Sasaki was added to the agency’s blacklist which would prevent him from returning to the country.

Sy said that the members of the telecom fraud group were able to enter the country because at that time, they had not yet received an arrest warrant and there was no Interpol Red Notice. Jaspearl Tan/DMS